Stephen Thompson

On the day Dundee United's chairman attempted to pour oil on troubled waters by explaining at length in a local newspaper interview the rationale behind the decision to sell Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven to Celtic, this performance was the last thing he needed.

It was a year in which Mikhail Gorbachev would begin to change the world by taking charge of the Soviet Union's Politburo and introducing Perestroika and Glasnost while in the politically not dissimilar city of Dundee the foundations were also being laid for regime change.